"I'd like to think we executed well against our business model," said Chris Running, CEO of Wirestone, an agency that was created last year by combining five shops. "We're profitable. We ... did an important job of getting everyone to shed their skin."

Revenue in the agency's first year was $22 million and came from clients such as AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Jim Beam, Agilent and Sony Interactive.

"The [new funds] will be used for continuing our acquisition strategy, [including going] after large companies that would require some cash in their deal," Running said.

"Secondly, it would be used to build our infrastructure -- accounting, knowledge management, IT, human resource systems -- to allow us access to the type of information we need."

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